New Year's Resolutions from Thought Leaders (Work Management Roundup)

Welcome back to the weekly Work Management Roundup, where we collect different links to articles that should help you do your work more efficiently and inspire you to new levels of excellence. Since this is our first for the new year, we'd like to take a look at the various new year's resolutions of thought leaders across the world. Read on!

Sheryl Sandberg: Write the Joyful Moments (Time): Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg says her new year's resolution is one that has already been helping her cope with losing her husband this past year — namely, to write down three joyful moments each day.

Richard Branson: List Your Goals! (Virgin): Richard Branson shares a tip for anyone wanting to stick to their resolutions: write it down, and keep a list. He enumerates 10 steps to creating a list that you can stick to.

Cal Newport: Cultivate a Deep Work Habit (Study Hacks): Cal Newport lives his resolution every day of his life. His resolution (and the topic for his latest book) is: commit time during your day for deep work. This is distraction-free time that allows you to work on cognitively demanding tasks. Not the shallow busywork of ticking off to-do items, but rather, the type of creative problem solving that builds real value.

Gary Vaynerchuk: Improve How You Work (Gary Vaynerchuk): Gary Vee suggests you commit to these four new year's resolutions to further your career (at the very least, they'll make you a much more pleasant coworker), namely: become a deep practitioner in something, audit your 7PM to 2AM, practice self-awareness, and eliminate complaining.

Forget About Setting Goals, Focus on Systems (James Clear): Productivity author James Clear says you shouldn't commit to a goal; rather, commit to a system or a process that allows you to track results. Read why this works better than simply listing goals.

David Allen: Practice Better Email (David Allen): And from the headquarters of GTD (Getting Things Done), comes this resolution which should be a staple for any organization: get better at email communications. Read the link for 5 tips on maximizing your emails, especially for globally dispersed teams.